Two-thirds of Democratic voters prefer candidates willing to compromise
A Wall Street Journal poll of Democratic voters has found that a majority do not want their party to shift further to the left, complicating a narrative that the party’s direction is moving leftward. The survey, conducted last month and published in the WSJ Politics newsletter, found that 52% of Democrats say their party should become more moderate or stay the same, while 37% say it should become more liberal.
The findings arrive against a backdrop of recent primary victories by left-wing candidates. Allies of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, won House primaries in the city, and left-wing candidates such as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan are the Democrats’ nominees in several Senate races. The WSJ Politics newsletter, written by Aaron Zitner, framed these outcomes by writing that “the results of this year’s primary elections might suggest that the Democrats’ far-left flank is taking over their party,” even as the publication’s own polling pointed to a more complicated picture.
The poll indicates that a growing share of Democrats identify as liberal without endorsing a leftward course for the party. While 56% of Democrats now call themselves liberal — a substantial increase from 40% in 2010 — a smaller share wants the party to move further in that direction. The growth in liberal self-identification has not translated into majority support for a more liberal party.
More Democrats described themselves as “somewhat liberal” than as “very liberal,” and the two groups diverged on specific policy questions. The “somewhat liberal” cohort expressed more support for positions associated with centrist politics, including border security, police funding, and voter ID laws, than the “very liberal” group did.
The poll also found that two-thirds of Democratic respondents prefer a candidate who reaches across the aisle in the spirit of compromise to pass legislation. About one-quarter said they wanted a candidate who would not compromise on principles. The newsletter presented the roughly two-to-one preference as “another sign of moderate impulses” within the Democratic electorate.
The question of how leftward the party wants to move will come into focus on November 4, the day after the midterms, when Democrats begin the scramble to decide whether a progressive or centrist presidential candidate should lead them into the next race for the White House.
For every left-wing nominee such as El-Sayed running for Senate, the newsletter noted, Democrats have also nominated moderates such as Roy Cooper, the former North Carolina governor now leading his race for a Senate seat in that state. The mix of candidates on the general-election ballot complicates any simple characterization of the party’s direction heading into the post-midterm period.
The poll was written up by Aaron Zitner in the WSJ Politics newsletter, a weekday morning briefing on what is driving Washington. The newsletter is edited in collaboration with Joe Haberstroh and Emily Martocci, according to the publication.
Beyond the poll, the same edition of the WSJ Politics newsletter carried a series of other items driving Washington’s week.
Kevin Warsh, the Federal Reserve chairman, is scheduled to speak at an International Monetary Fund meeting in Bangkok, with his words to be scrutinized in the context of Wednesday’s unexpectedly hot inflation report, the newsletter reported.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is running for re-election, and Democrat Troy Jackson will face off Thursday night in their final debate before the midterms, the newsletter reported.
President Trump’s Thursday schedule was to include a Rose Garden lunch, a policy meeting that afternoon, and two tele-rallies that evening, according to the newsletter.
The Ilhan Omar investigation is aiming to build a case for stripping her citizenship, the newsletter reported, citing U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe. The effort by the Trump administration would ultimately seek to deport the Democratic Minnesota congresswoman. The probe is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia in 1995, with investigators looking closely at the congresswoman and the actions of her deceased father, some of the people said.
Trump has soured on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, again, the newsletter reported. Ukrainian officials suspect that Trump ordered Elon Musk, who owns the company that operates Starlink, to throttle Ukraine’s access to the satellite systems used to intercept Russian strikes against Ukrainian civilians. The suspicions haven’t been confirmed, but Trump has been increasingly unhappy that Ukraine was using U.S. resources to target Russia’s energy exports in a way he thought could hurt American consumers, according to the newsletter.
Republicans are playing defense on an expanding electoral map, the newsletter reported. With less than three weeks until the midterms, deep-pocketed GOP groups are trying to push struggling candidates over the finish line, while Trump and Vice President JD Vance are crisscrossing the country to shore up Republican support in red areas that seemed virtually unassailable months ago. Democrats, working to capitalize on Trump’s weak approval ratings and economic concerns amid the Iran war, have expanded their target map into more Republican-leaning territory.